SPLATTERdrome

Release Date: March 22nd, 1985

Director: Danny Steinmann

Screenwriter: Martin Kitrosser, David Cohen & Danny Steinmann

Genre: Horror

 

 

It’s amazing how much a film can suffer when omitting a character who never even speaks. This is the situation we find ourselves in with A New Beginning which is notable in horror circles for two reasons: a) Jason isn’t the killer, and b) The movie stinks on toast. 

 

The obvious point of comparison is Halloween 3: Season of the Witch, a franchise installment which caused an uproar by entirely abandoning its popular Michael Myers character. The difference between the two is that Halloween 3 does a fair job of standing alone as its own film. This is not true in the case of Friday 5 which comes off as a hopeless retread of old ideas but lacking the payoff of the one character fans are coming to see. What the filmmakers give us instead is a new series benchmark for on-screen murder, the introduction of hard drugs, and some memorable breasts. I appreciate the effort but there are no moral victories in 80s horror.

 

Despite the failings of this film I do like the basic story idea. Tommy Jarvis returning as an emotionally unstable adult is a good bit of continuity for the series though he’s nearly as mute as Jason himself. Nice choice screenwriters, another lead character who doesn’t talk. 

 

As a result of Tommy’s dullness this film takes on a sort of ensemble cast feel, continuously jumping around between immaterial characters as they are preyed upon and unceremoniously dispatched. No one carries the narrative, the film is mostly a collage of uninspired sex and butchery sequences thrown together to pass the time.

 

Had this been released as a stand alone film there would still be considerable problems. Continuity errors, cheap scares, and excessive hallucinations/dream sequences make Friday 5 a flimsy horror film no matter what name you stamp on it. I’m grateful that fans made their dissatisfaction known and hit Paramount where it hurts, their bottom line. A New Beginning was a financial disappointment which motivated the studio to refocus on Jason and rush a new film into production. This redemptive effort inspired Parts 6 & 7, the last good installments before the series took an unstoppable nosedive. But I’m getting ahead of myself again, let’s get zombified!